


Fishbone

by orphan_account



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Graphic Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9465623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: 'Weren't you listening?' Quill said as she stood back, letting him recover. 'We have unfinished business. Namely, I'm about to kick the shit out of you in payment for the agony you caused me.''That was,' Charlie said, gritting out the words, 'part of your punishment. For terrorism.''Rhodian law,' Quill said, and roundhouse kicked him in the thigh – a burst of pain then numbness, and Charlie keeled over onto his hands and knees. 'Rhodia is gone. Your law is gone, the arn is gone, and it's just between us, now.' She grinned, feral. 'Just the way I like it.'





	

The thing that woke Charlie was the movement of the bed as someone sat down beside him. For a second he thought it was Matteusz, and smiled into the pillow, half-way to reaching out to him. Then he caught the smell of coffee and musky perfume and his eyes shot open.  
  
'What do–' he said, and was silenced as Quill's hand clapped over his mouth, hard enough to sting. She put one finger up to her lips theatrically, and Charlie realised she had his phone, and was calling someone. Shock froze him still.  
  
'Good morning, Matteusz.' She spoke with her lips curling up into a cruel smile, and Charlie watched, transfixed. 'There's been a situation and I thought it best to tell you not to come home for another – ohh, hour. No, make it two.'  
  
Matteusz's voice, muffled into incoherence by the speaker of the phone, finally kicked Charlie into action. He pushed Quill's hand away and sat up, only to be knocked back down again, Quill's fingers tight around his throat.  
  
'Charles and I have...' Quill said, even as she half-rose to pin Charlie down more efficiently. He bucked, kicking and twisting, rasping out a protest as the blood roared in his ears. 'Unfinished business, shall we say. Don't worry, there won't be any permanent damage. But you really do not want to interrupt us, trust me. In fact, if I hear so much as hear the creak of our front gate... well. ... mm. Yes. Two hours, not before. Don't force me to make you regret it.'  
  
She hung up and tossed the phone to the floor, lifting her hand from Charlie's throat in the same moment. Charlie rolled away, off the bed, gasping, and his dash for the hallway was cut off as Quill threw his bedside lamp at him. The glass smashed over his head, slicing into his scalp, and blinded by his hands over his face Charlie ran straight into the desk Quill had pulled in front of the door.   
  
Quill's hand grabbed the back of his t-shirt, yanking him back. Quill's fist on his stomach, winding him, and her knee on his chest as he doubled over. One of his ribs broke with an audible snap.  
  
'You got what you wanted!' Charlie voice cracked on the second word. He stumbled away, not quick enough to avoid Quill as she backhanded him across the face. 'Why are you even still here?'  
  
'Weren't you listening?' Quill said as she stood back, letting him recover. He could feel blood on his cheek where her ring had caught him. His ribs burnt like they were on fire. 'We have unfinished business. Namely, I'm about to kick the shit out of you in payment for the agony you caused me.'  
  
'That was,' Charlie said, gritting out the words, 'part of your punishment. For terrorism.'  
  
'Rhodian law,' Quill said, and roundhouse kicked him in the thigh – a burst of pain then numbness, and Charlie keeled over onto his hands and knees. 'Rhodia is gone. Your law is gone, the arn is gone, and it's just between us, now.' She grinned, feral. 'Just the way I like it.'  
  
'You're insane,' Charlie said; as he spoke his broken rib screamed out its pain.  
  
'Oh, no. Not insane, far from it. I'm Quill.'  
  
Hauling him up with a hand on his throat, she slammed him back against the wall and punched him in the stomach, then again, and again. Charlie lashed out, blinded by tears and ending up doing nothing but grasping on to Quill's jacket. He screamed as she punched him in the chest, the broken rib grinding against its neighbours, and curled into a ball as she dropped him.  
  
'Pathetic. Didn't they teach you how to defend your royal self in Rhodia?' Quill lifted his chin with the toe of her boot. She pulled an exaggerated sad face. 'Or is it that you're not even trying? Do you really hate yourself so much?'  
  
'Fuck you,' Charlie hissed, jerking his head away. His eyes fell on his mobile, lying discarded in the corner of the room. The screen was lit up; someone was phoning him.  
  
'Poor thing must be worried sick,' Quill said. 'Been calling non-stop since I hung up. Do you suppose he's going to do something stupid?'  
  
Charlie uncurled, crawling towards the phone, and cried out when Quill stepped on his hand. 'Not so fast,' she said.  
  
'Just let me talk to him!' Charlie said, and coughed as his broken rib sparked fresh pain through his chest. His head spun.  
  
Quill laughed. 'Listen to that arrogance! Like you still think you own me. No. If you want to speak with your little boyfriend, you're doing it on my terms. And it's going to cost you quite a lot of pain.'  
  
'You're going to hurt me anyway,' Charlie said, not looking away from his phone.  
  
'True. But it'll be worse if you want to talk.' Quill ground down on his hand. 'So, which is it?'  
  
'No permanent damage,' Charlie said.  
  
'Fine, whatever. No permanent damage.' Lifting her foot from his hand Quill turned and flopped down onto his bed. 'You have one minute.'  
  
Charlie grabbed for the phone, wincing as his whole body protested at the action – but looking at the screen, Matteusz's name and face lighting it up, his fingers wouldn't move to accept the call.  
  
'It's a very expensive minute you're letting tick away,' Quill said from behind him. Charlie pressed the answer call button.  
  
'Matteusz,' he said, and without knowing what else to say let Matteusz's voice wash over him.  
  
'Charlie? Charlie, what's happening?' Matteusz's voice was frantic, raw, like he was close to crying. It struck Charlie that he'd heard Matteusz like that far too much in not a lot of time, and the realisation caught like a fishbone in his throat. 'Did she hurt you? I'm on my way home, where are you?'  
  
'Don't come in.' The sound of Matteusz's breath catching came through the phone and hit Charlie, as painful as any of Quill's blows. 'I'm home, but you should stay away. For the two hours, at least.'  
  
'What? Charlie, no, I can't just let her hurt you. Please, I can do something.'  
  
'Trust me. I'll be fine.' His voice was trembling. 'Just – come back after the two hours, yeah?'  
  
'I will, I promise, but Charlie, please, let me do something before that. I can help. I can get the others, I can see if I can find that doctor person–'  
  
'No.' Charlie pressed shut his eyes for a long second. The swell of emotion scalded him, the bruises given to him by Quill aching and aching, and he could feel himself start to cry. 'Matteusz, keep yourself safe, and... I'll see you after two hours.'  
  
'Please,' Matteusz said. 'Please, Charlie.'  
  
A movement to his left and Charlie flinched away. Quill stooped and picked up the phone, ending the call. 'I hope it was worth it,' she said, looking down at him. 'Now get up. I'm not in the mood to beat a little boy crying on the floor.'  
  
'Then don't,' Charlie said, gritting his teeth against the sob rising in his throat. He cried out as Quill grabbed his wrist and dragged him up by it, staggering to his feet. When Quill snapped the index finger of his right hand he screamed.  
  
Inside her grasp his middle finger snapped sideways at the second knuckle with an audible crack. Nausea washed through him, and, as Quill broke his ring finger, bending it until she could press it flat against the back of his hand, Charlie swallowed back a mouthful of vomit, and choked on it as he yanked himself free. Quill kicked him to his knees, then to the floor with a blow on his upper back. Throwing out his hands to catch himself, his broken fingers jarred against the floor and tore out another scream.  
  
Quill kicked him in the face, splitting his upper lip on his teeth, and pulled him back up to slam into the shelves. A vase with orchids fell over, shattering. She grabbed his broken right hand and squeezed the fingers together, shouting over his yell: 'How does it feel? It is agony, yet? Do you want it to stop? Beg for it! Beg for it, then!'  
  
'Stop! Please–' Charlie's words dissolved into a scream as Quill squeezed harder, jerking his hand up so he had to stand on tip-toe.  
  
'And still it doesn't! Do you think _I_ could've asked it to stop? Did you think it stops just because you want it to?' She was screaming, too. 'Well it doesn't! It carries on! It gets worse!'  
  
Grabbing his upper arm in her other hand, Quill brought Charlie's arm down against her raised knee. It broke, the bones of his elbow dislocating, one cracking. When she let him go, to fall, curled on the floor, she was breathing hard. She brushed her hair back from her face, and knelt with one knee pressed down on the wrist of Charlie's broken arm. With her hands on his shoulder and hip she uncurled him and pushed him to lie on his back on the floor. 'Well?' she said. 'Sick of the pain, yet?'  
  
Charlie's face was crumpled in sobs, his skin bone-white where it was not blotchy red. Quill glanced at the clock. 'I hope not, because you have one hour, forty minutes left of me.'  
  
Carefully, she put her hand around his neck. 'I should kill you,' she said, and tightened her grip. Charlie choked a breath before his air was cut off, and he struggled inefficiently with his unbroken hand on Quill's, kicking, his heels scuffing the floor. A terror worse than pain tore through his head, wiping out all other thought, making his heart beat so hard he thought it would burst.  
  
Quill loosened her grip for a moment, letting him gasp and hack, then tightened it again. _I can't breathe. I can't breathe._ The thought battered itself against the inside of his skull like a wasp caught in a lamp. Black crawled in from the outside of Charlie's vision until it was all he could see, and the only sound was the quiet thrum of blood in his head. Then, after a long time, both the pain and panic dissolved away.  
  
It wasn't so bad.  
  
A desperate breath he hadn't meant to allow as Quill released his neck – Charlie curled up, coughing and hacking, pain like boiling oil filling up his broken bones, inside his lungs, burning its way up his throat and into his skull. He struggled away like a dying animal before Quill got him by the neck again.  
  
When he could next breathe, an indeterminate amount of time later, he lay still, too exhausted to move. His body felt like it was disconnected, not quite his any more. Very distantly he could hear Quill speak.  
  
'Aren't you going to fight? Are you really just going to lie there and take it?' Something smashed right beside his head but he couldn't even flinch, unable to do anything but take shuddering gasps of air. It hurt to breathe but he couldn't stop. Quill screamed in frustration. Another smash, another vase, breaking apart against his left hip. A book, the spine snapping as it hit the side of his head. His eyes burnt. He was crying again, he realised. That hurt, too.  
  
'You're pathetic,' Quill said. 'How are you this pathetic?' Her voice was shaking. The sound of the desk being flipped, his computer crashing, echoed through his head. The door opened and slammed shut.  
  
He couldn't tell quite how long it took for him to crawl over to lean on the glass of the balcony doors, cold against his skin. It hurt; his whole body hurt, sharp agony, and wouldn't stop. He brought his knees up to his chest, then dropped them down, then up again, trying to find which hurt the least and finding neither of them. His chest hitched with his sobs and with every inhale it felt like someone was poking a knife into his chest, tearing his throat apart. When would Matteusz arrive? He couldn't read the clock – his vision was blurred. He squinted at it until he realised he didn't know when the two hours had started anyway. His fingers of his right arm wouldn't move, not even his thumb and little finger, the undamaged ones.  
  
He just wanted it to stop hurting. He wanted Matteusz to arrive. He deserved this, but–  
  
It hurt to breathe but he couldn't stop. He was sobbing and with every hitch of his chest it hurt, hard enough to drive his sobs all the harder, in a pitiful, pathetic cycle.  
  
He only realised Quill was standing in the doorway when he tried moving to relieve his throbbing head, and flinched back, ducking down into himself. Nothing happened. After a moment Quill left. The sound of her feet on the stairs, so familiar by now. The front door opening and slamming shut.  
  
The front door opened and closed again; another set of footsteps running up the stairs. Newer in his life but no less familiar. Charlie breathed a trembling sigh of relief, and that hurt, too.


End file.
